LONGMEADOW – On March 24 the Longmeadow School Committee met virtually to largely discuss guidelines for Longmeadow teachers who would like to use virtual classroom communication with students.

Much of the conversation at the March 24 meeting surrounded the conversation of distance learning for students in the district, and the guidelines that needed to be established for teachers when it comes to using online platforms such as Zoom and Google Meet to connect with students.

“When we got out of the gate with the remote learning, one of the things that happened was lots of teachers were actively using real–time video–based conferencing tools, Zoom and Google Meet. We began to have – I began to have – some concerns about teachers' use of that,” Superintendent Marty O’Shea explained to the school committee. “While I appreciate everyone’s energy in using it, I felt like we hadn’t offered any guidance around use. We had concerns about student privacy, we had concerns about how teachers might be using it in terms of what their expectations were of kids.”

O’Shea continued, noting that they “felt it was best to hit pause” on using real–time video tools. O’Shea noted that after consulting other districts, out of about 90 school districts, only one claimed to have some form of policy regarding teacher use of real–time video tools.

“Yet, across the state, there was a lot of eagerness to use the tool,” O’Shea said.

O’Shea displayed a set of guidelines that was created to assist in guiding teachers when it comes to using video conferencing tools. The guidelines were shown as follows:

•Parent/guardian must not have withheld permission for their child.

•LPS educators who use Google Meet or Zoom for Educators must work within the “Guidelines for Remote Learning’ distributed to staff and families on March 16.

•Only students grades 3–12 may participate. This may be revisited in days ahead.

•Virtual meetings may not be made mandatory for students.

•Student participation in a virtual meeting must not be a factor in any assessment or feedback.

•Students must be provided with the option to “dial in” to use the audio only option.

•All virtual meetings must be recorded, posted for future student access and archived by the educator.

•Virtual meetings must be scheduled at least one day in advance.

•Virtual meetings must be scheduled during regular school days and hours.

•Educators must adhere to the same professional standards expected in a regular school setting.

•Educators are responsible for understanding the “meeting host” controls that can be used to protect student privacy and safety.

After showing the guidelines, O’Shea said, “Were trying to keep everyone in an instructional lane here. The hope is that if either of these two tools are used that were not trying to replicate or duplicate a typical school day. We're waiting dese guidance on what is permissible and how much we can expect of students. We think right now the guidelines are consistent with the advice that we've received from DESE.”

He then made it clear that the use of video conferencing tools will not be used to replicate a school day.

School Committee Vice Chair Bronwyn Monahan questioned if there was a way to avoid schedule conflicts with classes, so if there was a student who wanted to participate in video conferencing, they wouldn’t have two teachers hosting a class at the same time.

O’Shea said that they would like to avoid having classes hosted at the same time, but he didn’t know if it would be possible.

Committee clerk Ryan Kelly noted that he has three children in the district, but only one computer. He explained that families with multiple students wouldn’t be able to “pull that off.”

To Kelly’s point, O’Shea stated that they had distributed over 150 Chromebooks to members of the public with students to try to accommodate the aforementioned issue.

Committee member Susan Bell said that “maybe there could be some effort to schedule, especially at the high school to make sure there isn’t significant overlap,” however O’Shea explained that this would be a challenge, because when times are established, it’s the district establishing a schedule for teachers and a schedule for students.

“We’re trying to avoid that as much as possible, and trying to be respectful that teachers and students alike are juggling a lot at home,” O’Shea said. “I’ve had to ask some teachers to hold back, and as eager as they are, it winds up that may not work for kids at a particular time.”

 Committee member Kevin Shea explained that he works for Smith College, and that he spent a lot of time over the past days recording video content to push out to his students. He noted that asynchronous communication (communication that is pre–recorded and published online for student access) would be critical during this time, rather than trying to schedule live conferences.

Committee chair Armand Wray stated, “Our teachers have been wonderful so far. I can’t tell you how many emails we’ve gotten, how much feedback, the availability, the ‘I want to work with you,’ it’s just tremendous. It just goes to show why the data says this is one of the best places to work because they are just outstanding at what they do, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what they do during these hard times.”

He later added that he wanted the public to know that not only is the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) is guiding them, but that an attorney is advising the committee as well. Wray noted that they “have to make sure they’re following the rules,” and that “it’s not as easy as demanding that learning go online immediately, there’s a lot of consideration that has to go in this.”